Emma Watson Pussy
Books:
Anna Karenina
War And Peace
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but they too have souls. Its what the old
folk used to say: A sweating hands an open hand, a dry hands
close. Hes naked, but yet hes given it back."
Karataev smiled thoughtfully and was silent awhile looking at the
pieces.
"But theyll make grand leg bands, dear friend," he said, and went
back into the shed.
CHAPTER XII
Four weeks had passed since Pierre had been taken prisoner and
though the French had offered to move him from the mens to the
officers shed, he had stayed in the shed where he was first put.
In burned and devastated Moscow Pierre experienced almost the
extreme limits of privation a man can endure; but thanks to his
physical strength and health, of which he had till then been
unconscious, and thanks especially to the fact that the privations
came so gradually that it was impossible to say when they began, he
endured his position not only lightly but joyfully. And just at this
time he obtained the tranquillity and ease of mind he had formerly
striven in vain to reach. He had long sought in different ways that
tranquillity of mind, that inner harmony which had so impressed him in
the soldiers at the battle of Borodino. He had sought it in
philanthropy, in Freemasonry, in the dissipations of town life, in
wine, in heroic feats of self-sacrifice, and in romantic love for
Natasha; he had sought it by reasoning--and all these quests and
experiments had failed him. And now without thinking about it he had
found that peace and inner harmony only through the horror of death,
through privation, and through what he recognized in Karataev.
Those dreadful moments he had lived through at the executions had as
it were forever washed away from his imagination and memory the
agitating thoughts and feelings that had formerly seemed so important.
It did not now occur to him to think of Russia, or the war, or
politics, or Napoleon. It was plain to him that all these things
were no business of his, and that he was not called on to judge
concerning them and therefore could not do so. "Russia and summer
weather are not bound together," he thought, repeating words of
Karataevs which he found strangely consoling. His intention of
killing Napoleon and his calculations of the cabalistic number of
the beast of the Apocalypse now seemed to him meaningless and even
ridiculous. His anger with his wife and anxiety that his name should
not be smirched now seemed not merely trivial but even amusing. What
concern was it of his that somewhere or other that woman was leading
the life she preferred? What did it matter to anybody, and
especially to him, whether or not they found out that their prisoners
name was Count Bezukhov?
He now often remembered his conversation with Prince Andrew and
quite agreed with him, though he understood Prince Andrews thoughts
somewhat differently. Prince Andrew had thought and said that
happiness could only be negative, but had said it with a shade of
bitterness and irony as though he was really saying that all desire
for positive happiness is implanted in us merely to torment us and
never be satisfied. But Pierre believed it without any mental
reservation. The absence of suffering, the satisfaction of ones needs
and consequent freedom in the choice of ones occupation, that is,
of ones way of life, now seemed to Pierre to be indubitably mans
highest happiness. Here and now for the first time he fully
appreciated the enjoyment of eating when he wanted to eat, drinking
when he wanted to drink, sleeping when he wanted to sleep, of warmth
when he was cold, of talking to a fellow man when he wished to talk
and to hear a human voice. The satisfaction of ones needs--good food,
cleanliness, and freedom--now that he was deprived of all this, seemed
to Pierre to constitute perfect happiness; and the choice of
occupation, that is, of his way of life--now that that was so
restricted--seemed to him such an easy matter that he forgot that a
superfluity of the comforts of life destroys all joy in satisfying
ones needs, while great freedom in the choice of occupation--such
freedom as his wealth, his education, and his social position had
given him in his own life--is just what makes the choice of occupation
insolubly difficult and destroys the desire and possibility of
having an occupation.
All Pierres daydreams now turned on the time when he would be free.
Yet subsequently, and for the rest of his life, he thought and spoke
with enthusiasm of
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